Children’s Book Museum – meeting our favourite book characters!

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Recently we visited the Children’s Book Museum (Kinderboekenmuseum) in The Hague. I’ve wanted to go there for a long time, but I was waiting for our little world traveler to grow enough so that he could appreciate it. At 3,5 I think he was the right age for a first visit and I’m sure we’ll go there again as he gets older and learns how to read! We both love … Read more

Flying with infants and toddlers – 10 tried and tested tips

Our little boy has been on over 25 flights. That’s more than most people we know… and he’s only a toddler. He’s a proper little world traveler! On his first flight, he was only 3 months old. For him flying is as normal as taking a train or a bus. After 10 months of travel, 25 flights and 32.645 miles, it’s time to share some of our tried and tested … Read more

Our lowlights and highlights of 2016

For us 2016 was mostly about transitioning back to life in The Netherlands. Our wish to travel longterm, but not being able to, made it a pretty difficult year. Now that the year has come to an end, I realize we aren’t making ourselves any happier if we continue thinking in limitations. So it’s time to start looking at possibilities instead! To gain some perspective, let’s look back at all … Read more

Best kid friendly places for lunch in Haarlem

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We’re having a lot of fun rediscovering our hometown Haarlem. There’s so much to do and see! The second post in this series about fun things to do in Haarlem with kids is about kid-friendly cafes. Whether you are sightseeing in Haarlem for a day or staying here longer, it’s always good to know the best places to go for a coffee or lunch with your child. If you’re coming … Read more

Why you should never ride an elephant

TripAdvisor announced they will be taking a stand against animal cruelty. They’re stopping the sales of tickets for wildlife shows where people can touch wild or endangered animals. As one of the world’s biggest and popular travel websites, TripAdvisor is finally taking some responsibility after pressure from animal rights groups all over the world. As some of you may have noticed I don’t post a lot on the blog because … Read more

Sprookjeswonderland, a great day trip from Amsterdam

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Recently we visited Sprookjeswonderland in Enkhuizen, located about 60 km from Amsterdam. Our toddler loved it! It’s a great alternative to the Efteling and other Dutch amusement parks, especially with young children. And it’s surprisingly affordable too. Sprookjeswonderland is not as busy or expensive as most of the other Dutch amusement parks, such as Efteling, Walibi or Julianatoren. It doesn’t have any thrilling or scary rides, there is no loud … Read more

7 budget travel tips for short-term travel

Long-term travel isn’t in the stars for us right now due to family circumstances, but we need to satisfy our wanderlust one way or another. Since short-term travel is relatively expensive I started thinking about ideas for affordable short-term travel. Here are the budget travel tips that I came up with so far. I’m not (yet) seeing how we can combine tropical, scuba destinations, short term and affordable travel and … Read more

Families on the move: Meeting the Marshalls

Since we can’t travel ourselves right now, one way to beat the travel blues is to meet other traveling families. Last week we had the pleasure of showing Jason, Michelle and James Marshall a bit of our hometown Haarlem. They’re originally from Atlanta, Georgia, USA and have sold everything they own to go travel with their 11-year-old son. Some people may think they are absolutely crazy, but let’s be honest. … Read more

6 months home: how are we adjusting?

Last week (July 21st to be exact) it was 6 months ago since we came back. We miss being on the road! It was nice to see family and friends again, to have a place of our own for a while, to eat some typical Dutch food, to be able to cook our own meals… Jace loves going to daycare two afternoons a week and visiting his two sets of … Read more

Berlin: Mauerpark Flohmarkt / Flea market

Even though we didn’t expect too much of it, we were very pleasantly surprised by the Mauerpark Flohmarkt, the flea market at Mauerpark (Wall Park) on Sunday. If you’re going to visit Berlin, this is definitely something to put on your to do list. The park next to the market area was the big attraction for us. It had a festival vibe, with live performances, people sitting around with food … Read more

Things to do in Vienna Austria with kids

You will have absolutely no problem finding things to do in Vienna with kids. Vienna is a great city to visit with kids of all ages. There are a lot of parks, practically all of them with playgrounds, public transport is very accessible and there are a lot of fun kids museums. We spent about a week Vienna (if you’re traveling without kids I think you can probably see most … Read more

Thai Tiger Temple takedown

For many years wildlife activists are trying to rescue 137 illegally kept tigers from the Thai Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Now it looks like it’s finally going to happen! The decision was made when more than 1,000 officials came to the temple this Monday morning, May 30th. After being denied access to the temple, the officials returned with a search warrant to remove the tigers illegally being kept on … Read more

A fantastic time in Vienna

We’re on a short trip in Europe and spend the past few days visiting Vienna. It’s our first trip after spending 10 months in South-East Asia and it feels good to be on the road again. We’re actually on the train from Vienna to Prague while I’m writing this (gotta love free WiFi ;-)). And after a few days in Prague, we’ll end this trip in Berlin. Also read: Tips … Read more

Review: Happy Gecko Dive Resort Bunaken

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We stayed at Happy Gecko Dive Resort, also known as Happy Gecko Resort or Cicak Senang Resort, for a week and enjoyed every second of it. We were very sad to leave. The bungalows are basic but the views, hospitality, food and diving are absolutely fantastic. Happy Gecko Dive Resort is a small dive resort on Bunaken Island, only about 1,5 hours away from Manado Airport. It’s owned by Jerry, … Read more

Interview with the Orwicks from StudioEverywhere.org

The Orwicks are a family from Beaverton, Oregon, USA. Their international art project Studio Everywhere officially launched with 10 month round the world trip. They’re traveling across Central and South America, Asia and Europe. In each country they initiate art projects with kids, where they invite them to paint self portraits expressing ‘how they see themselves in the world’. Their mission is, in their own words, to experience and learn … Read more

Two months after our return: how are we doing?

Today it’s been exactly 2 months since we came home from our travels. And I have to say transitioning back into ‘regular’ life has been quite a struggle. We really miss the freedom and the great weather. It’s still really cold here in Holland and we’ve been stuck inside way too much. Being back in Holland means being back to restrictions and obligations, back to living in a tiny apartment … Read more

Kids travel accessories – our top 5

When you search the internet you will find tons of kids travel accessories. From brightly colored suitcases and lightweight travel strollers to kids travel pillows and kids sunglasses. One even more expensive than the other. But we travel with a toddler who can’t carry his own luggage yet, got our stroller second hand, don’t need a travel pillow because he sleeps everywhere anyway and we’ve hardly used his sunglasses. So … Read more

Things that I won’t miss about traveling

We’ve been back in The Netherlands for 4 days now and I already miss traveling. The freedom, the sunshine, the unpredictability of being on the road… It feels weird being back in the same tiny apartment, while we ourselves have changed so much after traveling for so long. Also, after living out of a suitcase for nearly 10 months, it feels a bit suffocating to have so much ‘stuff’. We’ll … Read more

12 things I’ll miss when this Big Adventure is over

Recently someone told me ‘freedom is inside you’. I thought that was really interesting because one of the things that I will definitely miss when we get back to Holland is the amazing sense of FREEDOM that traveling gives me. I’d love to figure out how to retain that feeling once we get back! We’ve had this amazing time together as a family and we were really lucky we were … Read more

New Year’s Eve in Bangkok… with a toddler

New Year’s Eve in Bangkok with our 2-year old is definitely one of our fondest travel memories. Would we, at any point before we left on this trip, have considered waking a 2-year old to roam the streets at midnight in search of fireworks? No way! But we did it anyway and had a marvelous time. Bangkok is one of our favorite cities in the world and it was very … Read more